‘History gets forgotten, brushed aside...’ Polk site near Pineville tells untold stories

Violet and Lucy were two young girls forced to leave their families and home just north of Huntersville in 1794 after the death of the person who enslaved them.

The girls were sent to unfamiliar surroundings in southern Mecklenburg County. They were forced to work for the Polk family, with whom they would spend the rest of their lives.

The James K. Polk State Historic Site, off of Lancaster Highway near Pineville, is now shining a light on these and others from the Polk family’s history whose stories often go untold. The Polk site is near the North Carolina-South Carolina border where York and Lancaster counties meet.

The site is the birthplace of James K. Polk, who was the 11th president of the United States and the only one from Mecklenburg County and North Carolina.

Visitors can tour the historic grounds and peruse a museum dedicated to Polk’s life.

There is no admission charge for the grounds and visitor center. Cabin tours are held on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Tour tickets are $2 for adults and $1 for seniors and children ages 5-12.

“The Enslaved Polks” is an online wayside that tells the histories of the people enslaved by the Polk family. The project’s point of emphasis is the lives of individual enslaved persons and provides insight into the institution of slavery in the Carolinas.

Waysides are pieces of information stationed throughout the grounds that provide details about aspects of the site’s history.

“We currently have five waysides here on the ground that tell various aspects of the Polk story. And besides the enslaved persons wayside, we’re also working on one about the Catawbas. This is their ancestral land. That will be put up on the grounds hopefully over the summer,” said Scott Warren, the historic site manager.

The site’s research has recently expanded to illuminate the lives of enslaved persons who lived and worked for the Polks.

“The Enslaved Polks” tells the stories of three enslaved persons, but research limitations have caused the stories of two others to be lost.

“(Highlighting the enslaved people) started with Kate Moore, our former assistant site director. She came to me with the idea of expanding our education of the enslaved persons that were here at the Polk site,” Warren said.

“She ended up going to Atlanta, but thanks to her, she still had that passion for the work and wanted to be involved in the project. Our Friends group, which is a separate ... nonprofit, contracted with Kate as an independent historian researcher to continue this work. We took in suggested edits and we turned that body of work that Kate did into an Adobe Spark page.”

The Adobe Spark page can be viewed only on the internet.

“The next step is to take this information and create a wayside here on the grounds where people can come and get that sense of how the farm was built. The Polks made their wealth on the backs of these five people,” Warren said.

“A lot of times, that history gets forgotten, brushed aside or swept under the rug. We felt it important to tell their stories and what life was like for them. These were humans. They were mothers, fathers and children. It means a lot to me and the staff to be inclusive in our storytelling and share that with the public.”

Online presentation is an increasingly popular way for researchers to share historical findings with the public because more people have access.

“We submitted (the project) for a technology award at the Southeastern Museums Conference, and we won a digital education award for it,” Warren said.

Many aspects of Violet’s and Lucy’s life remain unknown.

“All you have, especially this early on, is either wills or tax records. The census hadn’t kicked in yet, and even so, enslaved persons were under the three-fifths rule under way later on,” Warren said. “A potential growth avenue for us would be to talk about modern day researchers and the challenges they have in going through records.”

Thanks to “The Enslaved Polks,” we know Violet went on to have two daughters. Lucy was forced to move from Mecklenburg County to Tennessee to Mississippi in service of the Polk family before her 1838 death in Mississippi due to tuberculosis.

“Nowadays, telling a full, complete story is filled with challenges, but it’s up to us as public historians to be able to share and tell those stories,” Warren said. “This project has really meant a lot to us and reminds us why we do this work, because it’s important.”